Author Archives: Rachel Liu

Step over someone, shorten their life span.

Context: 

D is a 20 year old college student living in Los Angeles, California who was originally from the Philippines. 

This conversation took place in my room as a group of my friends were hanging out and I brought up if they knew any folklore or proverbs that they wanted to share. The informant said they remembered another one and then forgot it so they had to wait a second before it came back to them. 

Text: 

D: My mom was like if you step over people, they’re gonna die like you’re gonna shorten their life. It’s like a Filipino superstition. 

Reflection: 

This superstition is interesting because a lot of the superstitions I know are extreme while this one shortens your life versus immediately causing death. Additionally, it seems like a scenario that would not come up very easily as the person would have to be physically lying on the ground and not try to prevent you from stepping over them. I wanted to see what the origin was as my friend had only heard about it from their mom without explanation, but I couldn’t find any more information on the superstition. It could also be another superstition that is meant as a preventative measure by parents to prevent their children from doing something dangerous.

Dogs barking at night mean someone has died or is going to

Context: 

D is a 20-year-old college student living in Los Angeles, California who was originally from the Philippines. 

This conversation took place in my room as a group of my friends were hanging out and I brought up if they knew any folklore or proverbs that they wanted to share. This superstition followed a couple of others that were thrown out by the informant and other friends but was the last from this particular informant.

Text: 

D: They say if a dog barks at night, either someone already died or someone is going to die. If the dogs are like barking and howling at night… In the Philippines.

Me: Not in the US?

D: I don’t know haha. 

Reflection: 

I thought this superstition was very interesting as it was a depiction of an animal as a way of informing people about something. I feel as if I have heard of similar superstitions but am not completely positive about what the details were. I think it’s also interesting that it is interchangeable between someone being dead or that someone is going to die. Typically, there is a separation between an omen and a superstition that is reporting the death of a person. It seems likely that this stems from a belief that dogs have a “sixth sense” that allows them to detect that someone is dead and therefore vocalize it because of their ties to humans. 

Coren, Stanley. “Can Dogs Sense When Someone Is about to Die?” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/canine-corner/200905/can-dogs-sense-when-someone-is-about-die.

Nuwa repairs Heaven

Context:

H is a parental figure of mine who grew up in China and is currently living in California. 

This conversation took place over a weekly phone call with my parents after I asked them about stories that they knew from China. 

Text: 

H: So basically, Nüwa is the goddess in China, well not China but in heaven. She’s a goddess in heaven but she was supposed to keep an eye on Earth. But in very old ancient times, somehow the heaven collapsed because the four pillars that hold heaven collapsed and the Earth was not covered because heaven collapsed. And fire went out of control and water flooded the earth and in order to patch the heaven, Nüwa had to do something. So she melted five different colored stones to patch up the sky and she also cut off the legs of a great turtle. I guess the turtle is also a god, you know, and set those legs as pillars to support the sky. And she also helped to put out the fire and drain the flood, you know the water, and basically she helped save the Earth.

Me: Hmm Okay.

Reflection: 

I think this story is really interesting because it is about a feminine figure who has a lot of power in the world of gods, which is not something very typical in Western culture. It is also interesting because I do not remember this specific goddess, but I do remember that these pillars are part of other tales in Chinese mythology that surround Sun Wukong, a character in Chinese mythology that I learned a lot about as a child. This story also seems to build on the myths that have turtles in which a city or island is on the turtle’s back, although this story is using the turtle’s legs rather than its back. According to other sources, Nuwa also created humans which is why she is so protective of them and rushes to patch up heaven in order to prevent the fall out onto Earth. In some versions of this story, the five different colored stones that were used to patch the heavens explain why the clouds can be multicolored in our sky. 

Greenberg, ByMike. “Who Is the Chinese Goddess Nuwa?” MythologySource, 5 July 2021, https://mythologysource.com/nuwa-chinese-goddess/. 

Kong Rong Rang Li and the Pears

Context:

H is a parental figure of mine who grew up in China and is currently living in California. 

This conversation took place over a weekly phone call with my parents after I asked them about stories that they knew from China. 

Text:

H: Kong Rong Rang Li is also this little boy… he was 4 years old I think. His father was very fond of him so one day he brought home some delicious pears-

Me: Wait is he a real person?

H: Yeah, he was real- in the Han Dynasty. I sent it to you because the name can be really hard to spell. But after his father brought home the pears, he gave Kong Rong, who was four, the biggest pear. But Kong Rong had a lot of brothers. He had five elder brothers and one younger brother. Kong Rong… decided to give the biggest pear to his youngest brother and his father was very surprised and asked him how come you- and Kong Rong, instead, picked the smallest himself. Kong Rong said I’m younger than my older brothers so they should have bigger pears than me and his father than said how about your younger brother. Oh he didn’t give his younger brother the biggest pear, he just put the biggest pear down I think and picked up the youngest – the smallest pear. The father then asked how about the younger brother? He should have the smallest pear right because he’s the youngest. But Kong Rong said no because I’m older than him so I should take care of him by giving him the bigger one. So after he said that, his father was very happy and his brothers all felt that they should do something so they all tried to pick the smallest pear.

Me: (laughs)

H: (laughs) So they, you know, all learned how to, try to save the best one for others. 

Reflection:

This legend is another story that is meant to teach children to act a certain way. It is another origin story of a famous scholar in Ancient China who teaches kids to put others ahead of them and be selfless. I thought that this story was endearing because it ended with none of the kids wanting to eat the largest pear in order to be selfless like their brother. I think his logic was also very smart but also childish in the sense that his answer to his father changes to the opposite in order to answer for both his younger and older brothers. It also seems to tie into the tradition of gifting fruits in Chinese culture rather than other physical presents, especially bringing fruits home from a journey.

Butterfly Lovers

Context:

H is a parental figure of mine who grew up in China and is currently living in California. 

This conversation took place over a weekly phone call with my parents after I asked them about stories that they knew from China. 

Text: 

H: The Butterfly lovers –

Me: Oh not this one-

H: This one is actually pretty famous cause it has music, you know the flute. The Butterfly Lovers, which Dynasty I forgot, there’s a famous legend. So Zhu Yingtai comes from a very rich family, she’s the only daughter of the family. Because her brothers all went to school and she wanted to be like her brother, so she disguised herself as a man, a young man, and went to Hanzhou, a different city. Cause you know her family they lived in Shangyu, the same province as Hangzhou but Hangzhou is the biggest city, the capital city of the provence. There she met a fellow student called Zhu Yingtai, sorry Liang Shanbo. 

The womens name is Zhu Yingtai, the guys name is Liang Shanbo in Hangzhou at the same school. And they felt like they could chat and develop a very good friendship with each other. They studied together for like three years and the lady, Zhu Yingtai actually fell in love with Liang Shanbo. But Liang Shanbo didn’t know she was a girl so he just treated her like a brother. One day, Zhu Yingtai received a letter from her brothers asking her to come back home so she went back home. I think her father tried to marry her off to a rich family’s son so she went back home. And then, Liang Shanbo decided to visit her afterwards because he happened to go to the area. And then, he found out, after he went to her home, that she’s a lady and he fell in love with her and decided to propose for her, for marriage. But her, Zhu Yingtai’s family looked down on Liang Shanbo’s family because he’s from a poor family and they said she’s already engaged to this rich guy, rich family’s son. So Liang Shanbo felt really sad by this and he got depressed and died soon after.

Me: Oh.

H: Yeah, he was, so Zhu Yingtai after she heard about the death, she told her family – she was resisting the marriage before but she told her family she decided to get married. So they, so she was all dressed up in red and they sent her by carriage to the other guy’s family because its not in her home town. And when her carriage passed by Liang Shanbo’s tomb, she said to stop and she wanted to um, bid him farewell. So she got off the carriage and kneeled by the tomb and you know, then suddenly the tomb, the sky changed color, the clouds came by, the sky changed color, and the tomb spilled open. And she decided to jump into the tomb, and the tomb closed itself and the sky was all cleared up. So I guess God was trying to help them. So, afterwards, they saw two butterflies came out from the tomb, that’s why they said they became butterflies.

Me: Ohhh I was about to say I don’t know where the butterfly lovers thing is coming from.

H: Because she jumped into the tomb and the tomb closed itself. Then they saw the butterflies and the butterflies lived happily in the flowers so they said they became the butterflies. Because the butterflies were always together so the local people thought it was their spirits together so they could never get separated. 

Reflection:

This legend is incredibly interesting to me because it mirrors the cliche in Mulan of hiding one’s gender whilst also mixing it with what reminds me of the story of Hades and Persephone. It is a classic example of star-crossed lovers and one that is popular enough that there is a famous violin orchestral arrangement that illustrates this tragic love story. However, this story ends with an assumed happy ending, even though both protagonists seem to die, they are still reunited. This legend also brings up the concept of reincarnation as the people assume that the butterflies that immerge are the souls of the lovers who are finally able to live together after they both pass. According to an online source, the carriage actually stopped because of a storm rather than the bride being able to ask to pay her respects to him. These lovers are traced to written records of the story in a book from 700AD about the Chinese empire with a brief mention of the lovers. The butterfly element seems to be added at a later date to represent the idea of metamorphosis and change that allows them to be reunited together. 


Su, Minjie. “The Butterfly Lovers: A Classic Chinese Love Story.” Medievalists.net, 13 Feb. 2019, https://www.medievalists.net/2018/02/butterfly-lovers-classic-chinese-love-story/.